Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. It happened on 20 July 1969, and millions of people watched worldwide on live television. His mission and safe return are widely considered to be among America's greatest accomplishments of the 20th century.

Armstrong was a Navy fighter pilot in the Korean war, and flew 78 combat missions. Later, as a civilian, he flew extensively as a test pilot. As a NASA astronaut, he commanded Gemini VIII in 1966, which conducted the first rendezvous of two spacecraft in orbit, and narrowly averted disaster when a stuck thruster made the Gemini craft roll and yaw uncontrollably. In 1968, the pressurization system for the steering jets on Armstrong's lunar landing research vehicle failed. Armstrong ejected safely, but the $1.5 million vehicle was a complete loss.

In 1969, Armstrong commanded the Apollo 11 mission, and made history. Without in any way minimizing his courage -- space travel was and remains very dangerous -- it's worth remembering that Armstrong's accomplishment was not his alone. Two other astronauts (Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin) accompanied him on his most famous mission, and the Apollo program was designed, constructed, and monitored all along its way by thousands of experts. It cost more than $25 billion -- about 1/6 of the cost of the Vietnam war, in 1960s dollars.

NASA higher-ups decided which astronauts would make which missions, and any of the astronauts could have been chosen. When the crew for Apollo 11 was named, NASA decided weeks in advance that Armstrong, not Aldrin, would be the first to step out of the landing vehicle, and thus forever be the correct answer on history and science quizzes.

Even Armstrong's famous words when he stepped onto the moon ("That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind") were scripted for him -- and either flubbed or garbled in transmission. It was supposed to be "one small step for a man", which makes much more sense.